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Unreal Tournament 3 For Linux Confirmed

Phoronix: Unreal Tournament 3 For Linux Confirmed

While everyone was expecting Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux based upon Epic Games providing native Linux clients for their past Unreal Tournament titles, this week it was officially confirmed by Epic's Mark Rein that there will be a Linux client for UT3. Mark Rein is the VP of Epic Games as well as being their forum administrator.

Yeah that was definitely expected, as with the Quake Wars Linux client. This year is a good year for Linux gaming for sure. I'm pretty excited about the two games, when I build my new system at the end of the year, I look forward to these games.

Mark already announced the dicision to provide Linux-client-support a few months ago in a direct x 10-related thread in the UT3-forums.

The reality is, the quality games for the large part have interchangeable sound, input, rendering, etc. backends that handle things like DirectInput versus SDL or Direct3D versus OpenGL anyhow- and if you are targeting PS3, you HAVE to use OpenGL at this point...

Once you've gone down the path of supporting PS3, a MacOS and Linux version is easier than most are willing to own up to.

The reality is, the quality games for the large part have interchangeable sound, input, rendering, etc. backends that handle things like DirectInput versus SDL or Direct3D versus OpenGL anyhow- and if you are targeting PS3, you HAVE to use OpenGL at this point...

Once you've gone down the path of supporting PS3, a MacOS and Linux version is easier than most are willing to own up to.

Yeah, or if you're EA, you just use Transgaming Cider for everything.... I hate EA. Always have haha. If anyone has the manpower and money to do real ports, its them for sure. But I guess they want to "maximize" their profits and have as many bugs as possible.

I don't hold it against a company for using something like Wine to port their game, at least if they originally coded for DirectX and decided they wanted to have a port and truely don't have the money and manpower to do a true port. I think most companies are starting to come around, slowly. And with two major games coming out for Linux this year, I think that will help the cause.

Yeah, that's awsome. It's nice to get some reassurance every now and then even if it is expected. I think a lot of PC game developers underestimate the market potential of the Linux community. It's no surprise that my gaming time has significantly decreased as I've started using linux more over the past couple of years. But at the same time, it's kind of funny, in a way it's actually reenergized my zeal for gaming. As new games get released or announced with native Linux ports, I get that much more excited for it.

Yeah, that's awsome. It's nice to get some reassurance every now and then even if it is expected. I think a lot of PC game developers underestimate the market potential of the Linux community. It's no surprise that my gaming time has significantly decreased as I've started using linux more over the past couple of years. But at the same time, it's kind of funny, in a way it's actually reenergized my zeal for gaming. As new games get released or announced with native Linux ports, I get that much more excited for it.

Yep I know exactly what you mean. Same case for me, basically I have no intention of touching Windows anymore. I think like this, if I can't run it in Linux, I'll find something else to take its place. Theres always something out there, but yeah, I know what you mean about re energizing.

Its like for some reason, when playing games in Windows, you just feel like I don't know, things are going downward? But in Linux its the opposite feeling? To me, I feel more positive when I use Linux, especially with gaming. It just has a feel to it that feels similar to what I call the golden era of gaming.

One thing i'd like to add is that i've noticed games in Linux generally are very good games. However theres alot of bad games in Windows. They're either poorly coded, or just don't have alot of fun factor to them, alot of times, both. I think gaming in Linux is very underrated, even by people who use Linux that can't let go of their Windows games. Because every game we get, is usually good, like recently, we got X3: Reunion, just came out on Tux Games. Thats a pretty good game, ported from Windows, rewritten to use Opengl. Its actually one of the best looking games out there at the moment and gameplay wise, its very open ended and has a great community. But it has a long learning curve. I'd probably rate it a 7 or 8 out of 10.

However, lets look at Battlefield 2 by EA, Windows only game. This game is plagued by bugs, has only 1 gametype, and to have a ranked server where you can have global stats (which I don't care about), you have to get a server from one of their providers, you can't host a ranked server of your own, but you can have a non ranked. So the game gets stale very quickly in my opinion. It also seems to have a selfish community.

I mean you can compare all day. Compare a Linux game against a Windows only game, usually the Linux game will win, no matter what game you choose in most aspects. Theres a few Windows only games though that would be nice to have. Half-Life 2, Jedi Outcast/Academy (Quake 3 engine driven games that run perfectly in wine), and maybe a few others.

But with the games we've got, Quake 3, Quake 4, UT 2004, the legion of open source games we have like Wesnoth, and other retail games like Uplink, X2, X3, and the free Enemy Territory, and alot more games, and Quake Wars and UT 3 coming out, I think things are good. Theres plenty out there in my opinion. But theres always room for more. I would say the only games we are really lacking that i'd like to see are RPGs, theres Neverwinter Nights of course but thats really the only one. I'm not saying mmorpgs, just rpgs, I think most mmorpgs are kind of a plague, but there are a few out there that look pretty interesting like Eve, which is getting a port (through wine), i've never played it but alot of people like it.

So in the end, we get games where developers go the extra mile, to make the game that much better, and to give us a port. I think I want the games that go the extra mile than the games that get rushed.